Your Right to Know

When the Union County commissioners decided to hire the county’s first administrator, they got an unexpected offer of help from a neighbor: Franklin County.

Franklin County Administrator Don Brown volunteered to help them write a job description, and he’s also sitting in on interviews of the four finalists.

Marysville City Administrator Terry Emery and Jesse Conrad, a Marysville accountant, also are helping to evaluate the candidates.

Plus, Union County is paying a consultant $125 an hour — with a $5,000 limit — for his help. Don Vermillion, a former county administrator from southwest Ohio, helped to sort through the 44 applications that commissioners received for the job. He also helped to draft interview questions.

Vermillion also helped the County Commissioners Association of Ohio narrow its list of finalists in its recent search for a new executive director.

The four people being interviewed this week and next in Union County are: David Anderson, the administrator for Delaware County’s Liberty Township ; John R. Cunningham, a Marysville resident and chief financial officer for the Ohio Development Services Agency; Becky R. Saine, the Allen County administrator in Lima ; and Jacqueline M. Walker, the director of administrative services for the city of Delaware.

The job description says the new administrator will be paid between $75,000 and $99,000, depending on experience. The commissioners hope to have someone hired by early December.

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If you live in Reynoldsburg, you’ve got a big decision to make in the Nov. 5 election.

Should you vote for an income tax increase or shoot it down? What would it mean to you? To your neighbor? To the world?

Calm down there, buddy. The city has launched an informational website hoping to answer your questions about that proposed increase to 2.5 percent.

Reynoldsburgfacts.com explains just who would shoulder the new tax and what would happen if it passes or fails.

Pass? An additional $5 million in revenue that would allow for road repaving, curb and gutter replacement, bridge repair, etc.

Fail? “Residents can expect to see a decline in the city’s ability to improve aging roads, sidewalks, gutters and other public areas...”

An interesting tidbit about this public information campaign: It was created by a consultant who happens to be Whitehall’s director of economic and community development.

Zach Woodruff designed a similar — and successful — campaign for his city in 2010. Helping Reynoldsburg, he said, helps the communities that surround it.

“It is better for Whitehall to have strong neighbors that are prospering,” Woodruff said.